I believe that music has much to do with the Tao. I believe that some truths may be revealed through music, or at least coincide in music.

Does anybody else feel that music has a special purpose in the Tao?

Please refer to the YiJing's hexagram -enthusiasm- I think it is #16... music has always been a part of humanbeings' spiritual expression. -

There are lots of instances where it is very evident to my ear that something transcendant it going on- "Bird(s) of Fire " by the Mahavishnu band -(John McGlaughlin et al-)
Is a quick example that comes to mind...As do Bachs' violin concertos and many other pieces-

Hey-that may be another thread- what are the more spiritually transcendant tunes that come to your mind...
christmas tunes don't work so well for me anymore but when I was very young they were magical in the extreme...-
Peace

Listen to Beethoven's string quartet opus 132. It's the hero's journey. Bach is more cerebral and stays in the cosmic realm, but the Romantics go down to the gritty depths to redeem the soul.

Wayfarer, I agree on Birds of Fire!

-Karen

So this is Christmas. Lennon
All I want for christmas is you. Mariah Carey

Both make me cry...... in a good way.

In my 2001 masters thesis I document that yin and yang are indeed music intervals and this is the key secret to understanding paranormal powers, because the intervals use COMPLIMENTARY OPPOSITES -- unlike all of western music and science.

My masters thesis is "epicenters of justice" linked at http://nonduality.com/hempel.htmI

Also my latest blogbook has further details on this at http://mothershiplanding.blogspot.com

OK so yin is the Perfect 4th music interval or 3:4 and yang is the Perfect 5th music interval or 2:3.

So in western music we are taught the "circle of fifths" or c-g-d-a-e-b-F#-C#--back to C through 2:3.

In fact, the natural overtones known as the Law of Pythagoras is an infinite spiral of fifths with no beginning and no end:

So the octave or 1:2 resonates into the overtone 2:3 as C to G and then 2:3 YANG turns into YIN as 3:4 or G to C.

The yang ratio creates all the other ratios through this complimentary opposite process that violates basic Western logic.

So western science is based on the commutative principle but since C to G is 2:3 and G to C is 3:4 this means that C times G does not equal G to C.

I give the technical details in chapter 4 of my blogbook -- "Secrets of the Freemasonic Greek Miracle" -- which math professor Joe Mazur stated this summer was "very important" information. He had me submit it to the most read math journal the MAA Monthly. He also asked me to add my personal comments, making it not appropriate for that journal....

http://www.myspace.com/cride0

"sittin on da porch"

i wonder if i can get any spiritual effects from listening to this

Quote Wayfarer;
"There are lots of instances where it is very evident to my ear that something transcendant it going on- "Bird(s) of Fire " by the Mahavishnu band -(John McGlaughlin et al-)"




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That is one great album.

Another great one is "Rites" by Jan Garbarek, if you want to get emotional
try "The Moon over Mtatsminda".
i dont understand the language but still it's just like a poem.

The circle of fifths is a great way to learn the notes and their relations to one another...as well as the instrument you are playing them on!

I'm glad that any qigong videos online are apriori "bogus" -- because this is the trend of the internet -- everything has regressed back to hollywood and boob-tube material. It's just like UFO videos.

So how can we even trust the written word? Isn't that the focus of this blog post? Well what if, on occasion a scientist zeroed in on the secret and just about discovered it -- so close but yet so far. As it happens last night I had such another encounter. This is from "Programs of the Brain" (Oxford U Press, 1978) by JZ Young, FRS (Oxford or Cambridge physiology chair or something) -- :

"It is the relative position of the formants that are important. Each vowel sound can be produced at any pitch of the human voice. The vowel sounds are thus the result of the balance of higher and lower frequency components irrespective of pitch-shifts. There may be an anology here with Land's discovery that colours are reported as the psychophysiological products of contrasts of higher and lower wavelengths irrespective of their position in the frequency spectrum (1959). Perhaps we shall find brain mechanisms that respond to such relationships in all the sensory fields (Ohe 1962)."

Yes PERHAPS ALL the sensory fields (like proprioreception, telepathy, telekinesis, etc.) -- if only one understands that the "higher and lower frequency components irrespective of pitch-shifts" and the "higher and lower wavelengths irrespective of their position in the frequency spectrum" ARE RESOLVED BY UNDERSTANDING OVERTONE HARMONICS AS COMPLIMENTARY OPPOSITES. Pitch started from violation of the commutative principle from the Law of Pythagoras, the ratio 2:3 as an infinite transduction of energy, through the empirical truth of natural overtones. C to G is Yang as the Perfect 5th (2:3) while G to C is Yin as the Perfect 4th (3:4) and yang turns into yin, through the whole energy spectrum, thereby creating all the sensory fields, and starting from LISTENING to female formless awareness. The source of the I-thought as the source of 1 is an asymmetric resonance into female formless resonance, resonated back as the octave: 1:2. This "pitch-shift" is asymmetric so that the 7th octave, as the 12th perfect 5th, does not return to the same frequency, but transduces, in continuation with the complimentary opposites of yang, 2:3, turning into yin, 3:4, thereby violating basic symmetry of western logic. C x G does not equal G x C just as momentum x position does not equal position x momentum in quantum mechanics.

And so another scientist stumbled on the truth, only to wander off wondering what production value it had as a Nova special.

I have one name for you: John Coltrane. In case someone doesn't know, he was a jazz saxophonist influencing in the 50s and 60s. Early in his life he was massively into drugs but then but then quit them all (exept psychedelics, I think) cold turkey after he found faith. This is heard very clearly in his music, too.. his first recordings are a good listen, but it was only after his enlightenment he shaped his own language and found all the marvellous melodies, harmonies and colours you can hear in his later playing.

Love supreme is his most famous album (and one of the most famous in all jazz history) and it's tributed to god and his faith. A must listen for any music lover, obviously. Personally, I think second track on "Live at Birdland" titled "I want to talk about you", is probably the most beautiful thing I've heard. But then, I'm a jazz musician (or at least trying to be one) so your tastes may vary. Also I think his later albums (1965 onward) have an intense spiritual vibe.. not for the faint of heart, though.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_coltrane)

So you're just blatantly ignoring what I'm saying or....

NONWESTERN TUNING. Not personal taste.

Coltrane got into yoga in his final days but like Miles Davis and Yusef Lateef, the closest they got was to "modal tuning."

That's not it.

Here's some examples:

raga music, traditional chinese music, gamelan music, dagomba ghana drumming, Berber hand clapping, Sufi music, Japanese flute music, Temiar Malaysian healing music, Anurada Paudwal devotional singing.

Again NONWESTERN TUNING based on the overtones used.

... overtones ... accoustics ... geometry





This illustrates "yin" & "yang" components of a diatonic (western 8/13 scale). Specifically yin yang in relationship to a tonic or root that is western.

Chinese tunings are based from the root or gong note outward, instead of from the root upwards. It is not linear like a western scale. The scale can be either yin or yang depending on minor or major relationships.



Or as a point in a circle.



Pythagrean comma.





Finally, Chinese and Japanese musical theory were based on the eight categories of sound (Chinese: pa yin ): metal (bells), stone (stone chimes), earth (ocarina), leather (drums), silk (stringed instruments), wood (double reed wind instruments), gourd (sho , or mouth organ), and bamboo (flute).

Refreshing,

Spectrum

................

fun falls hand in hand

take me or leave me

robot or man

one counter one intuitive

a one man band

you just gotta stand

one mind

one body

one hand

Spectrum

The 1-4-5 intervals are found worldwide, as I reference in my masters thesis linked at

http://nonduality.com/hempel.htm

So this basic yin-yang dynamic then creates the pentatonic which in the West was converted from the Babylon cycling of the elements at the Pentagon -- into the Golden Ratio.

Qigong works because of the ionization of electrochemicals from ultrasound -- what Buddha called the "inner ear method." Then through the small universe -- the 12 notes of the scale as the perfect fifth -- (which is why the book Taoist Yoga: Alchemy and Immortality calls the small universe:

PLAYING THE FLUTE WITH NO HOLES

cleanses and purifies the ionized electrochemicals (yin vitality) as the alchemical agent to create blissful electromagnetic fields (the focus of the heart energy).

So the chi -- is the result of harmonizing the lower emotions of the pentatonic scale -- anger, sadness, fear, worry and overexcitement -- into bliss-electromagnetic-light or yang-vitality.

Then finally the chi shoots up to the brain to create shen -- which is the manifestation of the Female Formless Awareness as the "Mysterious Gate" or Tai Chi -- the final harmonization of yin and yang of the body.

The chi can then be "scattered" through the mysterious gate so that the yang-vitality shoots into yin sources outside of the body. I do this all day while sitting in full-lotus.

Or the chi can be reharmonized back into the body -- through the "yan xin secret" to build up the female formless awareness to create an "immortal fetus" -- I do this in my room.

I googled ket shamanism and in the 1960s no traditional shaman of the Ket Siberian people was known to exist. Nonetheless their shamanism nicely encaptures the reality of "musilanguage" as the proper philosophy for 90% of human history, during which time 90% of men were shamanic healers -- the Bushmen culture. This is from the Wiki entry:

As mentioned above, shamanistic practice shows great diversity,[2] even if restricted to Siberia. In some cultures, the music or song related to shamanistic practice may intend to mimic natural sounds, sometimes with onomatopoiea.[3]

This holds e. g. for shamanism among Sami groups. The Sami groups live outside of Siberia, but many of their shamanistic beliefs and practice shared important features with those of some Siberian cultures.[4] The Yoiks of the Sami were sung on shamanistic rites.[5] Recently, yoiks are sung in two different styles, one of these are sung only by young people. But the traditional one may be the other, the “mumbling” style, resembling to magic spells.[6]

Several surprising characteristics of yoiks can be explained by comparing the music ideals, as observed in yoiks and contrasted to music ideals of other cultures. Some yoiks intend to mimic natural sounds. This can be contrasted to bel canto, which intends to exploit human speech organs on the highest level to achieve an almost “superhuman” sound.[7]

The intention to mimic natural sounds is present in some Siberian cultures as well: overtone singing, and also shamanic songs of some cultures can be examples.

* In a Soyot shamanic song, sounds of bird and wolf are imitated to represent helping spirits of the shaman.[8]
* The seance of Nganasan shamans were accompanied by women imitating the sounds of the reindeer calf, (thought to provide fertility for those women).[9] In 1931, A. Popov observed the Nganasan shaman Dyukhade Kosterkin imitating the sound of polar bear: the shaman was believed to have transformed into polar bear.[10]

The intention to mimic natural sounds is not restricted to Siberian cultures. And it is not necessarily liked to shamanistic beliefs or practices. See for example katajjaq, a game played by women, an example of music of some Inuit groups. This applies overtone singing, and in some cases, sounds of nature (mostly those of animals, e.g. geese) is imitated.[11][12] Imitation of animal sounds can serve also such practical reasons like luring game in hunt.[13]

Ive been going to a african drumming circle which is awesome, but i do my own meditation and vibration through drumming the I ching.

Has anyone tried this?

Wun talk to me about drumming the I Ching! I've got a dum tek to practice with.

btt for i ching drumming

I think that music has a unique relationship to the nature of life/reality. Music is active. It is alive. It only exists as a process that is fully present NOW, in the moment. It is something that can never be grasped and held in a static sense yet it is right there, starring you in the face, as it were. In that sense, the experience of music is very much to me like the experience of life. It seems to have something to do with the wave nature of music. A sustained note is just that, it's the pauses that make it music... Music is not stuff, it's a process, like life and us...

Kongurei - Tuvan traditional
Bob Marley - Stir it Up (and many others)
Queens of the Stone Age - In the Fade and others
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Between Nothingness and Eternity (I like this one better than Birds of Fire - probably due to childhood nostalgia - this was my first Mahavishnu record and I saw them perform soon after it came out - it was amazing!)
Bach - many pieces, esp cello and violin sonatas, some cantatas
Delibes - Flower Song
Catalani - Ebben, ne andro lontana?
Faure - Requiem
Stravinsky - Firebird and Rite of Spring
Black Eyed Peas - yup, not embarassed to admit it - Where is the Love? and others
Genesis - Supper's Ready and Lamb Lies Down on Broadway

The list goes on and on - nothing much like a musical orgasm...
PS - this experience can be enhanced by cannabis intoxication.

'Theres a natural mystic blowing through the air;
If you listen carefully now you will hear.'

Natural Mystic - Bob Marley

PS - this experience can be enhanced by cannabis intoxication.